Higher drug prices forecast in Estonia

Press reports in Estonia claim that when the planned new healthinsurance legislation (Marketletter November 12) comes into force in the country, patients will have to pay more for cheaper medicines, as pharmaceutical companies will charge more for their products, reports the LETA news agency. The law is expected to set pricing limits for medicines.

The reports noted that, in order to reduce expenditures on medicines, the sick fund will set price limits on all medicines whose cost is partly covered by medical insurance. If producers sell the medicines at prices higher than the limits, then patients will have to pay the additional amount themselves.

One manufacturer, Nycomed, was cited as already having increased the costs of its morphine pills, with GlaxoSmithKline and Hoffman La-Roche also alleged to have increased the prices of their products.